


grey's anatomy's got nothing on us

by BeggarWhoRides



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Medical, Angst and Humor, F/F, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, POV Outsider, medical interns doing their darn best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 15:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides
Summary: “Hey,” Xinyi hisses from her bunk, when Harper is just starting to teeter over the edge into sleep. “I’ll bet you fifty bucks they’re having hate-sex."Or, five times surgical interns Harper Rowe and Xinyi Zhou tried to figure out the relationship between Dr. Cormier and Dr. Niehaus, and one time they knew exactly what it was.





	grey's anatomy's got nothing on us

**Author's Note:**

> **Trigger warnings:** One character is a pediatric surgeon, so child death is referenced and occurs off-screen. Medical procedures, including surgery, are described in detail. Blood, gore, accidents, and serious illness are all part of this fic.

i.

It’s the first day of her medical internship, and Dr. Harper Rowe is just trying to keep her head above water.

She’s one of several new interns, all in stiff new scrubs that have never even seen blood yet, stumbling after their assigned attending physician. And that’s part of the pressure--the attending she’s ended up with is _Dr. Delphine Cormier._ A cardiothoracic _legend._ She’s the most intimidating person Harper has ever seen, her lab coat embroidered and snow-white, blond curls in an elegant twist without a hair out of place, and heels that Harper never would’ve dreamed of wearing to a workplace full of running and blood. Dr. Cormier moves like she was born to walk in them. Dr. Cormier could probably walk on water if she had to in order to do surgery, if the legends are true. Dr. Cormier has apparently had marriage proposals from every living Rockefeller, and turned them all down. Dr. Cormier saved a patient in the woods with a straw and a hairpin. Dr. Cormier--

Dr. Cormier stops dead in the middle of the hallway. It’s only very quick thinking that stops it from turning into a sitcom, all the interns stumbling and jolting to a stop. Harper ends up right behind Dr. Cormier, shoulder pressed to that of another intern--Dr. Xinyi Zhou, if she remembers from the quick-fire introductions they’d had early in the morning. It’s bad enough to be right behind the perfect Dr. Cormier, but for another intern to look so much better is just unfair, and Dr. Zhou looks _good._ Her gaze is clear and focused, and her ink-black hair in a French braid so perfect it makes Harper pat at her frizzy ponytail self-consciously. 

Dr. Zhou isn’t giving Harper a glance, however--she’s staring up at Dr. Cormier. Harper follows her gaze and all thoughts of hair leave her mind.

Because my _God,_ the _tension._

In front of Dr. Cormier stands Dr. Cosima Niehaus. A name that’s not whispered through the halls like Dr. Cormier’s, but nobody comes away from speaking to her without stars in their eyes. She’s a pediatric surgeon, her skill at the bedside only surpassed by her skill in the OR, and is a weird kind of effortlessly beautiful--she shouldn’t be able to pull off dreads, glasses, a nose ring, ankle boots, and patterned leggings with her lab coat, but she does. She almost manages a casual slouch while standing, sleeves rolled halfway up her arms and hands deep in her pockets, a chunky necklace poking out of her coat’s neckline. Dr. Cormier, meanwhile, has perfect posture, neat and minimalist, her height and heels giving her several inches on Dr. Niehaus.

Not that it seems to faze Dr. Niehaus one bit. She’s staring right up at Dr. Cormier.

Not staring. Glaring.

“Dr. Niehaus.”

“Dr. Cormier.” 

“You are blocking the hallway.” 

“Oh, am I?” Dr. Niehaus rolls her shoulders like she’s preparing for a fistfight. Dr. Cormier blows out a low, annoyed breath through her nose.

“Some of us like to follow our schedules, Dr. Niehaus.”

“Gosh. You’d best get on, then.” Dr. Niehaus speaks with overly wide-eyed innocence, not moving an inch.

“Dr. Niehaus.” 

Dr. Niehaus glances around Dr. Cormier, seeming to notice the interns for the first time. Harper immediately tries to look like she’s not staring bug-eyed at the exchange. Dr. Zhou keeps looking flawless, damn her.

“Oh, a new flock of ducklings! These your ducks, doc?” 

“They are the new surgical interns, if that is what you mean.” 

Dr. Niehaus whistles long and low. “Wow, and you’ve ended up with Dr. Delphine Cormier as attending, huh? Jeeze, good luck ducks.” 

With that, she heads down the hallway in a flourish of dreads, slapping Harper on the shoulder as she goes. Dr. Cormier stands still for a moment, seeming to collect herself. 

“So what crawled up their asses and died?” 

It’s too quiet for Dr. Cormier to hear, so quiet Harper isn’t even sure she actually heard it--but that was a real sentence that had left someone’s real mouth, and that person was the beautifully professional doctor next to her.

Harper’s choking startled snort-laugh is not quiet enough for Dr. Cormier to miss. She tries to pass it off as a coughing fit, though based on Dr. Cormier’s look as they start moving again, she doesn’t quite manage it.

Dr. Zhou--the put-together and beautiful intern who apparently has a mouth like a sailor--smiles at her, though, and that almost makes it worth it.

ii.

It takes a few weeks, but slowly and surely a distinct pattern emerges.

Namely, that Dr. Niehaus will always, always call Dr. Cormier for a consult.

It happens the first time while they’re on Dr. Niehaus’s service, chatting with a little girl who’s having some shortness of breath.

“So, Lucy, what’s going on here?” Dr. Niehaus asks, tapping the girl’s chest lightly and making her giggle around a cough.

“It hurts,” she explains, pressing her palm to her chest. “And it’s noisy sometimes.” 

“Noisy? Like a bird or like a dinosaur?” 

“A bird, all high.” 

“Have you inhaled any canaries?” 

“No,” Lucy replies, but she’s grinning now and Dr. Niehaus grins back. 

“And what about here?” Dr. Niehaus asks, tapping Lucy’s forehead. “Any hurts up there?” 

“Nuh-uh.” 

“Are you more sleepy than usual?” 

“A little. I can usually go out in the garden but I’m too tired.” 

“That’s no good,” Dr. Niehaus agrees solemnly. “And what about here?” She tugs gently on Lucy’s ear, making the girl frown in confusion--and the other interns confused as well.

“Nothing’s wrong with my ear.” 

“Really? Because I think there might...just be...something…” Dr. Niehaus moves like she’s tucking Lucy’s hair behind her hair and pulls something out with a gasp. “Is this a sticker that says ‘World’s Best Patient’?” 

“Is it for me?” 

“It is for you!” Dr. Niehaus hands over the sticker, which Lucy accepts eagerly, before turning to the interns. “So, ducks, do we have a diagnosis?” 

“Asthma,” Dr. Zhou pipes up immediately, the way she always does. “Possibly due to a mild reaction to one of her medications. It’s most likely unrelated to her operation a few days ago.” 

“Good job, Zhou-duck.” Dr. Niehaus reaches behind Dr. Zhou’s ear, pulling out another _World’s Best Patient!_ sticker and slaps it onto the front of Dr. Zhou’s lab coat. “Pretend that says ‘medical intern’ instead of patient.” 

Dr. Zhou looks so affronted it’s all Harper can do to stay upright. Instead she’s trying to turn a snort of laughter into a cough that doesn’t even appear to be convincing Lucy. 

“Let’s give Dr. Cormier a page, to be safe.” 

Dr. Zhou’s offended expression deepens, but it’s Harper who speaks up--half to stop Dr. Zhou from saying anything she’ll regret.

“But Dr. Niehaus--there’s no sign of any cardiac problems--”

“Better safe than sorry.” 

“We could run some labs first--” 

“I’ve already paged her,” Dr. Niehaus cuts her off, waving her pager. “She’ll be here in five!” 

It happens again a week later--a child that almost definitely only has a mild infection developing on her port gets a visit from Dr. Cormier, as does a baby with almost no signs of any sort of cardiac distress. There are other calls sprinkled in, as well--clear-cut cases where everything was business, because nobody wants to see a kid sick or dying. But whenever she gets an excuse, Dr. Niehaus pages Dr. Cormier.

“I’m not crazy, right?” Harper asks one night, mouth half-full of egg roll. She and Dr. Zhou--Xinyi--are holed up in an empty conference room, splitting Chinese takeout because they’re both starting a shift in less than ten hours and neither felt like going home. “There’s a definite pattern.” 

“I’ve noticed too.” Xinyi had scoffed at the concept of ordering Chinese takeout and claimed she could hear her mother and grandmother having aneurysms at the very concept of buying ‘American Chinese food.’ She had also known what she wanted far too quickly to have never ordered from this place before, and is now eating with gusto. “Even when Dr. Cormier’s not on call, it’s Dr. Cormier she calls. And Dr. Cormier shows up, every time. You’d think she’d get sick of it, stop responding.” 

“Maybe she’s worried about missing that one real call. Boy who cried wolf and all.” 

_“I’d_ get sick of it.” 

“Good thing you’re not a real doctor yet, then.” But Harper smiles as she says it, and Xinyi grins sardonically back before stealing several of Harper’s noodles.

“She does that thing with her eyebrows every time too.” 

“Mm, yeah,” Harper agrees around a mouthful of food. “Looking down on Dr. Niehaus like she’s about to murder her with one of her stilettos.” 

“Or bend her over a gurney and hate-fuck her.” 

Harper chokes on noodles. Xinyi, without a break in her expression, stands and thumps Harper on the back, hard.

“How do you always _do_ that?” Harper asks once she can breathe. “I swear, my laughs aren’t this ugly when you aren’t around.” 

“I have a gift,” Xinyi deadpans. “And I’m serious.” 

“They _hate_ each other!”

“Doesn’t mean they don’t wanna do each other.” 

“Dr. Cormier’s probably straight!”

“Even rulers bend!”

“They do not.” 

“The plastic ones do.” 

“They do _not.”_

This leads to a thirty minute search of various conference rooms until they find a plastic ruler, and then a fifteen minute debate on how far and how often something has to be able to bend to actually be “able to bend” and if it still counted as bending if it broke after. Eventually they both realize they should probably get some sleep before rounds and head off into an empty on-call room, climbing into separate bunks.

“Hey,” Xinyi hisses from her bunk, when Harper is just starting to teeter over the edge into sleep. “I’ll bet you fifty bucks they’re hatefucking, not just hating.” 

And because Harper makes awful, _awful_ decisions when she’s exhausted, she says “Sure.”

iii.

“Okay, so, evidence time.” It’s one of those rare free days, and Xinyi’s in Harper’s apartment because Harper has just learned that, despite being a food snob, Xinyi cannot actually cook a darn thing and has been getting by on microwave food and cereal. Harper cannot, in good conscience, allow someone to live like that, so she’s half-kidnapped Xinyi for a cooking lesson.

The cooking lesson has mostly turned to Xinyi sitting on Harper’s couch, sipping the wine she’d brought over, while Harper does all the cooking.

“What?” Harper asks over the scallops she’s frying.

“Evidence. That they just hate each other.” 

“Oh come on,” Harper calls back. “Everyone knows they hate each other. I don’t need to prove that. You, however, need to prove that they’re having--lesbian hate sex in the on-call rooms.” 

“I think they’re smart enough to stay out of the on-call rooms. This isn’t _Grey’s Anatomy.”_

“Rest of my point still stands,” Harper points out, mixing some veggies into the pan. “I have like, fifty different incidents that I can pull out as evidence of hate. What’s your evidence of sex?” 

Xinyi makes a humming noise, followed by a noise like someone swallowing half a glass of wine in one gulp. “Well, there’s the fact that as much as they hate each other, they still work at the same hospital. With their reputations, either of them could apply to anywhere else and be accepted.” 

“Maybe it’s a salary thing. They’d probably give them both anything to keep her here.”

“What about they way they look at each other?”

“Like they’re going to rip each other’s throats out?”

“Or their clothes off. And remember that time we had a contamination scare, and we had to take those showers? They went for the same one.” 

“There were three stalls, we all had to double up.” 

“If they hated each other, they wouldn’t have gone for the same stall.” 

Harper concedes that point with a nod as she mixes the pasta, scallops, and veggies. “Okay, so that’s one thing.”

“And I saw them brush hands in the hallway once!”

“Can anyone corroborate that?” 

Xinyi grumbles under her breath, which means that no, nobody can. Harper plates the food and heads over to her couch. 

Xinyi is refilling her wine glass, and despite being in her day-off clothes, still looks unfairly flawless. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy knot, an oversized sweater hanging off one shoulder and yoga pants on her crossed legs. Harper had actually tried a little, what with a guest coming over and all, but in her jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt still feels awfully underdressed.

“Your conclusion will never stand up to scientific scrutiny. Your p-value is _massive,”_ Harper teases, passing Xinyi a plate and fork. “Now eat. You’re getting at least one actual meal this weekend.” 

“Their hands did brush--like they were going to hold hands, but changed their minds at the last moment. And it wasn’t the only time! I’ve seen them arriving to work around the same time too, at least twice. They don’t just hate each other! There’s got to be something--” 

Harper shoves a forkful of pasta into Xinyi’s mouth. Xinyi makes an offended noise, which fades into a delighted moan that does not make Harper blush, it does not.

“Pasta good then?” 

“Pasta’s _amazing.”_ Xinyi takes another bite, closing her eyes while she chews. “Doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

iv.

Harper stumbles out of the operating room, pulls off her scrub cap, and half-falls against the wall. She slides down it, staring at nothing, until she lands on the ground.

A moment later, Dr. Niehaus joins her.

Everyone had wanted to be the intern that got to scrub in on that case--a chance to see Dr. Niehaus do her magic, up close and personal. A rare tumor, a complicated procedure, it would have been so _amazing_ to watch everything go right.

But everything had gone wrong.

They’d worked hard--there’d been so little Harper could’ve done, but she’d watched Dr. Niehaus throw her entire self into it, watched her push beyond the usual time limits for CPR. Dr. Niehaus was magic, she really was, and she’d given everything she’d had to the little boy on their table, and none of it had been enough.

They’d just come from telling the family.

Harper doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to get up.

“Surgeons get good days and bad days,” Dr. Niehaus says after a long silence, her voice rougher around the edges than usual. “When you work on kids, that all gets magnified. The good days are really, really good, but the bad days are really, really bad.” 

She sighs, her head thudding back against the wall. “This is a really, really, really bad day.” 

Harper can’t do anything but nod.

“Harper?” It’s Xinyi, looking like she’s run through the halls--she’s a little flushed, a few hairs out of place, the closest to rumpled Harper’s ever seen her. Xinyi had wanted so badly to scrub in on that surgery. “I was looking for you.”

“I’m here.” 

“I…” Xinyi opens and closes her mouth, standing in the middle of the hallway. “Are you…” 

The sound of heels suddenly echoes through the hall, only a few moments before Dr. Delphine Cormier herself appears, as flawless as ever.

She’s looking at Dr. Niehaus, and for a moment almost seems to falter.

“Dr. Niehaus,” she says at last. “Why are you on the floor?” 

“I just lost a patient, Dr. Cormier.” 

“Oh.” She nods, short and sharp. “You should get some rest. You look awful and no parent will trust you going near their child like that.” 

And with that, Dr. Cormier walks off, the sound of her heels trailing after her. After a moment Dr. Niehaus picks herself up off the floor, running her hands over her face.

“Dr. Cormier’s got a point. Take the rest of the day off.” She stops for a moment, placing a hand on Harper’s shoulder. “You did good in there, Dr. Rowe. Don’t you doubt that.” 

Once Dr. Niehaus is gone, Xinyi sinks down next to Harper, slinging an arm around her shoulders.

“So Dr. Cormier was kinda a bitch there, huh?” She rubs Harper’s arm, gentle and warm. “Point to you, I guess.” 

Harper laughs--that ugly laugh Xinyi always manages to startle out of her. She laughs until she cries, and Xinyi doesn’t let go.

They’re still sitting there when Dr. Cormier passes by again, this time holding a huge to-go cup. Harper recognizes the logo on the side--it’s from a hipster place a few blocks from the hospital, the kind of place where everything is triple-organic and therefore triple the usual price. She’s never seen Dr. Cormier drink anything from there before, though every now and then Dr. Niehaus can be seen holding a cup.

Dr. Cormier doesn’t even see them, walking directly past them to the on-call rooms down the hall. She hesitates outside one, then knocks.

A moment later, Dr. Niehaus sticks her head out.

They’re halfway down the hall and speaking in voices too low to make out, but Dr. Cormier holds out the cup and Dr. Niehaus takes it, saying something with a weak smile that makes Dr. Cormier grin. Then her face falls, and so does Dr. Cormier’s in response. Dr. Niehaus reaches out a hand, and Dr. Cormier takes it. They both disappear into the on-call room.

“That didn’t look like hate-sex,” Harper points out, head still on Xinyi’s shoulder.

“No,” Xinyi agrees. “I don’t know what that was.”

The next day, everything is back to normal, and it’s like whatever moment Harper and Xinyi had seen never happened at all.

v.

“Dr. Cormier.”

“Dr. Niehaus.” Dr. Cormier finishes signing off her forms before turning to face Dr. Niehaus. “Usually you page me. What is it?” 

“I have a pediatric trauma coming in on the helicopter--car accident, bad.” 

“And this matters to me because... ?” 

“I need a cardio surgeon. Kid was born with a heart defect, and there’s some chest trauma involved.”

“Call Dr. Peterson.” 

“He’s out of town, his daughter’s wedding.” 

“Dr. Edwards, then.” 

“Out sick.” Dr. Cormier hesitates, searching for something, but doesn’t seem to have anything to say. The smirk on Dr. Niehaus’s face says she knows it too. “We’re gonna have to work together.”

Dr. Cormier takes a deep breath through her nose. “Fine.” 

“Fine.” 

“Dr. Rowe, Dr. Zhou, you’ll be scrubbing in.” 

“Yes Dr. Cormier.” 

“I--okay. Yes,” Harper sputters. Neither Dr. Niehaus or Dr. Cormier seem to notice one way or the other.

“I will see you in the theatre, Dr. Niehaus.” 

“Not if I see you first, Dr. Cormier.” 

They march off toward the operating room, very deliberately not looking at each other.

“Oh my god,” Xinyi says, staring after them. “This kid is going to die because they’re going to be too busy hate-eye-fucking each other over the table.”

Harper can’t find it in herself to disagree.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s a little girl on the table, anesthetized and prepped, and two doctors standing over her, scrubbed and ready, and two medical interns in the corner, wide-eyed and nervous.

“Are we ready?” Dr. Niehaus asks.

“Ready,” Dr. Cormier agrees.

“Great. Scalpel.” 

The scalpel touches flesh, and both Xinyi and Harper suck in a breath.

And then it happens.

Dr. Niehaus is magical. Dr. Cormier is legendary. And together...there are no words.

Half of that is because they need no words.

There are nurses and techs in the room, of course, and they talk to them--calling for instruments, for more blood, checks on the girl’s sedation level and stats, but the two of them settled almost without thinking into a pattern that is less practiced and more of a dance. Their hands are never in each other’s way, they never argue about the next step, but they move around each other as easy as water.

“Forceps,” Dr. Cormier calls, but doesn’t use them; a moment later Dr. Niehaus reaches up without looking and Dr. Cormier passes them over. 

“There’s a bleeder--” 

“I see it,” Dr. Cormier murmurs, reaching in with a clamp and hissing a curse in French. “I can’t--” 

“Rowe, over here, suction,” Dr. Niehaus calls and Harper jerks forward, taking the suction from the nurse and putting it where Dr. Niehaus pointed. “Better visual?” 

“It is not only the blood, the tear is in just the wrong spot---she will bleed out if it is not controlled, but I cannot--”

“Delphine, I’m going to reach in there with my hand and get my fingers around that tear, you just follow my hand, get your forceps in, okay? Hey,” Dr. Niehaus continues, waiting until she and Dr. Cormier make eye contact. “We’ve got this.” 

Dr. Cormier nods, taking a step back and calling for a different pair of forceps. Dr. Niehaus reaches in, beyond where any of them can see as she follows the vein with her fingers, pinching down where the little girl is bleeding out. Dr. Cormier is back there as soon as Dr. Niehaus nods, wrapped half-around Dr. Niehaus as she follows the line of Dr. Niehaus’s arm, pressed tight to her side.

“You’ve got it.” 

“Yes.” All you can see in an operating theatre is a surgeon’s eyes, but it’s all that’s needed to see the way Dr. Cormier’s eyes clear and light up, and how Dr. Niehaus’s eyes shine in return. “Yes, we’ve got it.” 

They throw in a stitch and start to close and that’s when it all goes to hell. 

“Doctors, her pressure’s dropping.” 

_“Fuck,”_ Dr. Niehaus says, with feeling. “Did we miss a bleeder?” 

_“Non,”_ Dr. Cormier says, eyes fixed on the monitor. “The heart, tamponade, we need to--” 

“Crack her chest,” Dr. Niehaus finishes smoothly, gesturing at a scrub nurse. “Let’s move, betadine, we’re doing a thoracotomy yesterday.” 

There isn’t really a way to describe the sound a little girl’s chest makes when it’s wrenched open. It’s medicine, it’s _helping,_ but thank God Harper’s been shoved to the side by doctors with actual experience, because a shudder goes through her whole body at the sound. Xinyi sees, she must, because the look in her eyes over her mask is far too knowing. But Harper is looking and seeing too, and she sees Xinyi’s smooth brow and steady hands the way anyone else would, but she also sees the way her eyes are wide, how her shoulders are pulled up a fraction more than usual, and she knows what it means. 

She’s terrified.

They both are.

They can’t hold each other, not standing across a little girl who’s heart is bare to the world-- _I don’t know her name,_ Harper realizes in a fit of panic, _does anyone in the room know her name_ \--but Harper holds Xinyi’s gaze. Doesn’t try to say _it’s okay_ or _everything will be fine with her eyes,_ because Xinyi always knows when she’s lying, but _I’m here. I’m here._

Across the table, she watches Xinyi take a breath and nod, just a little. But Xinyi doesn’t look away, not until Harper breathes out, and forces her jaw to unclench.

At some point the alarms had turned into background noise, but Dr. Niehaus’ panicked cry of _“Shit!_ Internal paddles!” jerks them both back into reality. 

“Charge to 25.” 

“Charging--clear!” As one, the room moves back, gloved hands in the air. On the table, the little girl’s heart jumps before falling back into stillness. 

“Again.” 

“Clear!” 

“Okay, 50,” Dr. Niehaus says, and they all pretend with her that her voice isn’t shaking. 

“Clear!” 

The small heart seizes and goes still. Much too still. 

How long has it been? Harper’s eyes go to the wall clock, but she has no idea what time it was the girl first crashed. A minute--two? Already three? How much longer--

Dr. Niehaus must have been thinking along the same lines, because the words that come out of her mouth are trembling. “Charge--fuck. Fuck, _Delphine--”_

“Remove the paddles.” Dr. Niehaus had called her Delphine but this is all Dr. Cormier as she steps back up to the table. “Time?” 

“Two minutes thirty,” the anesthetist replies. Dr. Cormier nods and shuts her eyes. 

“Delphine--” 

“Cosima,” Delphine says. _“Une minute.”_

It isn’t silent, the alarms are still going and Harper’s heart has never been so loud in her ears, but it’s like the whole room is holding its breath, everyone balancing on the most fragile wire as Dr. Cormier stands in the center of it all, her eyes closed, her hand inside a little girl.

And then all the tension flows out of Dr. Cormier in a rush, half a moment before the alarm fades out to register a pulse. 

A _pulse._

Harper blinks once, twice, and the rhythm is still there, the stats are still rising. 

In the palm of Dr. Cormier’s hand, a heart is beating. 

“Direct massage,” Dr. Cormier says, and her words are almost aching with a smile. “Sometimes, it is a gentle touch we need.” 

“Dr. Cormier,” Dr. Niehaus says, and Harper looks up, catches a glimpse of the way Dr. Niehaus is looking at Dr. Cormier, and has to look away. 

Because she doesn’t want to give Xinyi any ammunition for her ridiculous argument that the doctors are secretly having sex, that’s all. Not because that look Dr. Niehaus was giving Dr. Cormier was something ridiculous and open and warm, something that made Dr. Niehaus seem as vulnerable as that little girl’s heart. Not because she’d felt like she was stepping all over someone’s private garden just by looking. 

Not at all.

It’s anticlimactic in the best possible way as they close, all vitals holding steady and Xinyi and Harper each getting to throw some stitches of their own. 

“I can tell you’ve been watching Dr. Cormier,” Dr. Niehaus comments, while Harper is stitching. “She holds her needle in that weird-ass way too.” 

“I hope no one has been listening to you,” Dr. Cormier replies. “Or they will pick up your crass language in stressful situations.” 

Dr. Niehaus’ eyes narrow. “Dr. Cormier?”

“Yes, Dr. Niehaus?”

“Suck my dick.”

+i

Harper throws herself against the nurse’s station with a groan. Xinyi strolls over a few moments later, handing over a chart.

“It’s not fair,” Harper moans, opening her eyes just enough to glare. “How do you still manage to look like that after almost 12 hours on shift?” 

“Talent and bobby pins,” Xinyi answers dryly. 

“I think you’re a witch,” Harper mumbles back, pressing her forehead into the countertop. 

“Are you going to keep insulting me, or take the coffee I brought you?” 

Her head shoots up quickly enough a part of her brain worries about whiplash, but the rest of her is focused entirely on the to-go cup of coffee Xinyi is holding out. 

“You are a _goddess.”_

“Yes,” Xinyi agrees easily, not even raising an eyebrow as Harper proceeds to down most of the coffee in one gulp. “You’re welcome.” 

After a second gulp, the coffee is gone and Harper groans in relief. “God, I could kiss you right now.” 

Both of Xinyi’s perfectly manicured eyebrows fly up. Adrenaline that has nothing to do with the caffeine she just chugged shoots straight through Harper. 

“Um,” she says. 

“I,” Xinyi says. 

_“Dr. Sadler!”_ someone hisses across the ER bay. 

Harper almost gives herself whiplash for the second time in as many minutes, because no way, but there is Dr. Siobhan Sadler, white coat and all, striding over. 

If people gush about Dr. Niehaus and whisper about Dr. Cormier, they don’t speak of Dr. Sadler at all. They just cast their gaze respectfully to the ground, and the daring look up through their lashes just to catch a glimpse of the internationally-renowned trauma surgeon turned head of surgery, the woman behind almost every decision made in this hospital, the woman most people never saw at all. She’d all but vanished when she’d become head of surgery, using her power to avoid interacting with anyone outside her select few. She’d claimed to work better in shadow, and no one challenged her. 

But here she is in daylight, pulling on gloves and a trauma gown. 

“What’s coming in?” Xinyi demands of one of the nurses. “Is it a surge event?” 

“No,” the nurse says, looking at her screen. “No, no major casualty events or anything like that--the only thing we have coming in is a pedestrian vs motorcycle.” 

“Then why--” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Xinyi says firmly. “If Dr. Sadler’s getting in on it, I want in too. Harper, you coming?” 

“Yeah--yeah,” Harper says, catching the gown and gloves Xinyi throws her way. 

“Then move!” 

Dr. Sadler stands in the ambulance bay like a general on a battlefield. Harper has no idea how she manages to make a yellow disposable gown and latex gloves look so intimidating, but she knows it’s not something she’ll ever be able to do. 

Xinyi, of course, looks perfect.

“I want bloods and rapid infusers set up, A-pos, and an OR prepped and waiting,” Dr. Sadler is saying, people nodding and darting off at her words. “I want Goderitch and M.K. in the OR, they’re the best with trauma and we all know it. And someone call Sarah. You two. Whose interns are you?” 

Harper registers that Dr. Sadler is pointing at her, and promptly chokes on her tongue. 

“Dr. Cormier’s, Dr. Sadler,” Xinyi says promptly, posture more perfect than usual. Dr. Sadler’s face goes serious and dark, but before Harper can try to understand that, the ambulance pulls into the bay, not even fully stopping before the doors swing open.

“Female, 29 years old, deep penetrating trauma to the upper left quadrant--” 

When the gurney comes out of the ambulance, all Harper can see is the figure crouched on top of it, bent completely double over the patient. The figure has dreadlocks, dark brown and falling out of a high bun. Harper recognizes that--

And then the gurney pulls level with them, and she hears Xinyi suck in a breath, but Harper can’t look over at her, can’t breathe, because _that’s Dr. Cormier and Dr. Niehaus._

Dr. Niehaus is the one on top, her dreadlocks messy, pressed almost flat against Dr. Cormier--and that’s the thought her mind keeps getting close to and skittering away from, because on the gurney, that’s Dr. Cormier. 

Dr. Cormier is laying flat on her back, Dr. Cormier has an oxygen mask strapped to her face, it’s Dr. Cormier whose hips Dr. Niehaus is straddling while she presses both hands to a wound that’s dripping blood onto the ground-- _deep penetrating trauma, that means she was stabbed or impaled, left upper, that’s the liver_ \--Dr. Cormier’s forehead that Dr. Niehaus has her forehead pressed to as she talks, urgent and too low for any of them to hear.

“Cosima,” Dr. Sadler says, and Dr. Niehaus looks up. 

“S,” she says, and it’s a wound of a word. “The motorcycle came out of nowhere, we were crossing the street, I didn’t--I couldn’t--” 

“Okay,” Dr. Sadler says, “Okay, let’s get you down--” 

_“Don’t touch me!”_ Dr. Niehaus shrieks, and everyone freezes. 

“Cosima?” 

“It sent her into a construction site.” Dr. Niehaus’ breathing is ragged, a sharp contrast to Dr. Cormier’s too-pale skin and oxygen mask. “Metal went right into her and some clueless samaritan pulled it out before I could stop him. I had to pack it with something.” 

Harper looks down at Dr. Niehaus’ hands. One of them is pressing gauze firmly to Dr. Cormier’s abdomen and the other--

The other is going _in._

“There’s a tear in her hepatic artery.” Harper knows that artery--every doctor knows that artery, right up with the femoral, the carotid, the aorta, and all the others. Those major arteries where cutting them means bleeding out. “My thumb is on it. I’m holding her together, S.” 

While the rest of them are trying grapple with that, Dr. Sadler nods briskly. “To the OR, let’s go.” 

They’re at the elevator when Dr. Sadler turns around, one hand outstretched. 

“You two. Stay here.” 

“Dr. Sadler--” Xinyi starts. 

“No,” she says, the doors closing. “Dr. Cormier wouldn’t want to be seen like this.”

The elevator doors close with a ding that is far too cheery, and Harper and Xinyi are left with no one but each other.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I brought tea.”

“Thanks.” 

Harper waits for Xinyi to take the cup, then slides down the wall to sit on the floor beside her. Dr. Sadler had said Dr. Cormier wouldn’t want to be seen, so neither had even suggested going into the gallery to watch the surgery, but it had been easy to decide to sit in the hallway outside the OR and wait for news.

“Anything?” 

Xinyi shakes her head, not looking away from the opposite wall. It’s just a wall, except for the fact that on the other side is the OR, and Dr Cormier is in that OR, but not in the way she’s supposed to be--she’s in the OR but she’s on the table, naked and splayed open and vulnerable and _all the things Dr. Cormier is not supposed to be._ Dr. Niehaus is in there too, bloody and panicked and everything she’s not supposed to be either. Harper feels like she’s wandered into a mirror universe, half-expecting plants to start talking and Xinyi to get a split end, because those both seem just as likely as what’s happening now. But no talking vines interrupt their conversation, and Xinyi’s hair stays stubbornly perfect, and this situation remains her reality. 

She _hates_ it.

“Dr. Sadler and nurses Goderitch and M.K. are in there,” Xinyi says suddenly. “They’re all the best. They’re giving Dr. Cormier the best chances.” 

Harper is about to remind Xinyi that she was there, she saw it all too, but then she notices the unfocused look in Xinyi’s eyes, the way she’s tapping one finger against the rim of her paper cup of tea. 

The words aren’t for her. They’re for Xinyi. She’s terrified too. 

Harper takes Xinyi’s fidgeting hand into her own, laying both their hands in her lap. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Exactly. Dr. Cormier couldn’t have a better team in there.” 

“I--” Xinyi makes a frustrated noise low in her chest, her hand tightening in Harper’s. “I don’t even _know_ Dr. Cormier.” 

“Well, yeah, but I don’t think anyone does,” Harper can’t help pointing out. “She’s your mentor, Xinyi, of course you’re upset she’s hurt. Especially since you hero-worship her like there’s no tomorrow--” 

“I do not--” 

“I’ve seen the way you stare at her, yes you do,” Harper says firmly. “There’s this thing that human beings do called ‘being concerned for others, especially if you know them.’ You and I are stuck in the middle of it at the moment.” 

“Then I don’t want to be human,” Xinyi says petulantly. 

“Don’t get all Order of the Phoenix on me,” Harper warns, resisting the urge to wag a finger in Xinyi’s face.

“Then I don’t want _her_ to be human,” and there’s a lot more than just childish unhappiness underneath Xinyi’s words now. “Dr. Cormier isn’t the kind of person who gets hit by motorcycles crossing the street. That’s just--that’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit. It’s not _fair.”_

“I know,” Harper murmurs. Xinyi wouldn’t really welcome a hug, but she presses herself closer to Xinyi’s side all the same. “But she’s human too. We all are.” 

“I’m such a fucking _coward,”_ Xinyi suddenly spits, shoving herself off the wall and to her feet. Harper, startled, jumps up as well, but there’s nothing she can do but watch Xinyi pace furiously back and forth. 

“You’re not,” Harper says, “Of course you aren’t, Xinyi, why would you say that?” 

“We are doctors,” Xinyi says, still looking at the wall and not Harper. “We studied for years to learn all the stupid little things that can kill someone. We work in a hospital, surrounded by death and loss every goddamn day, we know what can happen, but--but,” Xinyi continues, words barreling out like she doesn’t know how to stop them. “I don’t want you to-to get MRSA from a patient or get caught in a drive-by or-or fucking flattened by a semi because you forgot to look both ways--” 

“I’ll look both ways before crossing the street,” Harper says, a little bewildered as to where this conversation is going. “I promise I will.” 

“But it could happen, I _know_ it could happen, and I haven’t--you could die and I might not--” 

“Xinyi,” Harper starts, no idea what she’s going to say but knowing she has to say something, and Xinyi whirls around, eyes blown wide and and breathing heavy. “Xinyi…” 

Xinyi grabs Harper by the shoulders and pulls her in, hard.

At first it’s just teeth and lips mashed together, Harper’s eyes wide and Xinyi’s squeezed shut, Harper’s arms stiff at her side. And then Harper realizes what’s happening.

Xinyi is kissing her.

Oh.

Xinyi is _kissing_ her.

_Xinyi_ is kissing her.

Xinyi is kissing _her._

As quickly as it started, Xinyi drops Harper’s shoulders and takes a single step back, resolutely not looking at anything in particular. 

Harper can’t help herself. She laughs, one hand covering her mouth in horror as she watches Xinyi struggle to make her face look like it isn’t crumbling.

“No,” Harper says, and Xinyi flinches. It’s tiny, but Harper knows her too well than to miss it. “Oh, no, Xinyi, I didn’t mean it like that--I meant--it’s--I finally found something you’re bad at.” 

Harper steps forward, taking Xinyi’s arm before she can move away. She moves her hand up to Xinyi’s shoulder, then to her cheek, all slow and gentle and giving Xinyi a thousand and one chances to bolt. 

Xinyi doesn’t.

Harper leans in.

Xinyi smells like she always does. Not that Harper’s been smelling Xinyi in some sort of creeper way, but but they’ve spent a lot of time together. They’ve hugged sometimes. They’ve even tossed their clothes in the laundry together after a few particularly long, heinous days. Harper knows what Xinyi smells like, is the point. She smells like hospital-grade antiseptic and plain soap, mint toothpaste and floral shampoo, with something beneath it that’s all human and all her. Harper leans in and her whole world is Xinyi’s smell, Xinyi’s cheek beneath her palm, Xinyi’s lips on her own, and it feels like a homecoming in the cheesiest, best way.

Harper pulls back just enough to whisper, “That’s how you kiss,” and Xinyi makes a low noise and pulls her back in. 

“You’re a fucking dick,” Xinyi hisses when they stop for breath. Harper, her hand tangled at the base of Xinyi’s braid, blinks blankly. “You _laughed_ at me!” 

“It--it was a shock reaction.” 

“My kiss was that bad.” 

“It...was?” Xinyi glares, and Harper winces. “Look, it wasn’t _awful,_ but we just--you just need practice, is all. And I’m more than willing to help with that.” 

Xinyi’s face twists in a way that means she’s refusing to smile. “Okay, that was kind of smooth.” 

“I know!” Harper says in surprised delight. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been suave!” 

“I’m honored.” 

“And--me too.” It’s Xinyi’s turn to blink, confused, and Harper’s to clarify. “All that stuff you were trying to say--about how risky living is, and short life is, and you didn’t want me to die without us, you know--me too. I feel the same way. About you, I mean. I’m really glad we kissed before one of us died. We should do it more.” 

“Okay,” Xinyi says, and they do.

When they break apart for air, Dr. Niehaus is there. 

“Oh my God,” Harper blurts. Xinyi jerks away, ripping out of Harper’s embrace like she’s burning, which Harper would be offended by in other circumstances, but...yeah. It seems like the best action to take when you’ve just been caught making out by one of your mentors, while your other mentor fights for her life in the OR on the other side of the wall. If there is a best action to take when you’ve just been caught making out by one of your mentors, while your other mentor fights for her life in the OR on the other side of the wall. 

Dr. Niehaus sighs for a long moment, and Harper braces herself for the lecture.

“Well, now Delphine owes me 20 bucks.”

“I…” Harper looks to Xinyi for help, but this may be the first time Xinyi’s actually been caught doing something inappropriate, and it seems to be short-circuiting her entire being. “You and Dr. Cormier were betting on us?” 

“On which of us would be first to get you guys to slip up and reveal you’re dating, yeah. Didn’t you notice how we always had you scrub in together?” 

“I…” Harper says, because yeah, now that she’s said something. “What do you mean ‘reveal’?” 

The confusion on Dr. Niehaus’ face looks genuine. “Are you telling me you haven’t been dating?” 

“No!” 

“That was your first kiss?” 

“More like...third?” Harper guesses aloud. “But the other two were in the last like 5-minute period, so…” 

“Holy shit,” Dr. Niehaus says. “We thought you guys had been together for _months.”_

“Um, sorry?” Harper tries. Next to her, Xinyi still has perfect posture, but her face is steadily turning redder. 

“Well, shit.” Dr. Niehaus shakes her head, leaning back against the wall. “Delphine is never gonna believe it when I tell her.” 

“How is Dr. Cormier?” Xinyi asks, and Harper can feel the lightness drain out of all three of them. _Oh. That’s right. Dr. Cormier could be dying._

She looks at Dr. Niehaus--really _looks._ Someone has given her scrubs to change into, and she’s washed her hands so thoroughly they look raw, but her dreadlocks are still a mess, and her shoes--

Dr. Niehaus is wearing her standard chunky ankle boots, but these have blood on them. Just a few drops, but too much. Way too much. 

“Dr. Cormier’s fighting. She’s got a great team in there, and they’re all doing everything they can.” 

Which is doctor-speak for _here’s some encouragement without any false hope, because the patient’s chances are really fucking slim,_ and they all know it.

“Should we…” Xinyi starts, swallows, starts again. “Do you know Dr. Cormier’s emergency contact, Dr. Niehaus? Family, or friends that we can call?” 

Harper curses herself, because this should have been the first thing she thought of--and a part of her cursing Xinyi, because it sounds way too much like _has anyone called her family, is there anyone we can call for you, someone call a priest,_ and all those other phrases that mean time is running out. 

“What family’s she’s got is in France, I’ll call them when we know something more definitive.” Dr. Niehaus looks so tired, and so small. Harper’s never noticed, but Dr. Niehaus is shorter than she is--she’s probably Xinyi’s height, when not in heels. “But her local emergency contact is me.” 

“You?” Harper blurts, before she can stop herself. 

“Well, yeah, Rowe-duck,” Dr. Niehaus says, a small smile fighting to tug at her lip. “It’s pretty standard when you’re married.” 

Married.

_Married._

_What._

“You’re married to Dr. Cormier?” For once, the blurted question comes from Xinyi, not Harper. 

“Almost three years now.” Dr. Niehaus looks over at both of them, a slow grin spreading over her face. “You guys really didn’t know, did you?” 

“How could we?” Harper asks, staring. “I thought you were--everyone thought you two--” 

“Hated each other?” Dr. Niehaus asks. “Yeah, that was kind of the idea.”

“I didn’t, I thought you two--” Xinyi’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click. 

“You thought we what?” 

“Dr. Niehaus!” Harper interrupts brightly in an attempt to stop Xinyi from saying anything she might later regret, only to realize she has nothing to follow up with. “Um, why?” 

“Why…?” 

“The…” Harper tries to make an expressive hand gesture, but her hand flops weakly by her side. Dr. Niehaus takes pity on her and speaks up. 

“The pretending? It’s complicated. But…” Dr. Niehaus leans back, her eyes toward the far wall but looking through it. 

_Oh God,_ Harper realizes, feeling like she’s just been plunged into ice water. _Oh God, she was at the accident. She was in the OR. She watched it happen to Dr. Cormier and she had to put her hand inside Dr. Cormier and then she was in the OR while they sliced Dr. Cormier open and she was stuck there, she had to watch, and that’s her wife._

_She must love her so much, to do that._

_She must be so strong, to survive that._

“Tell me,” Harper says. “If--if you want to, Dr. Niehaus. If you wouldn’t mind. Because, um, I’m not sure I believe you.” 

Dr. Niehaus makes a low amused noise, dipping a finger below the scrub neckline to fish out a silver chain, a ring made of twisted white and gold, patterned to look something between infinity symbols and DNA. 

“Wedding ring. Proof enough?” 

“All due respect, Dr. Niehaus, but that could be any ring,” Xinyi counters. “Tell us about how you met. Or why you didn’t tell anyone.” 

_Tell us some stories. Tell us about her. Tell us something so all three of us can pretend to be somewhere other than this hallway, staring at a wall and waiting for someone to tell us that Dr. Cormier is still alive._

Dr. Niehaus looks down at the ring, gently turning it between her fingers. Unthinkingly, like she’s indulging in a habit she doesn’t want to break, she presses it to her lips. 

“Let’s sit down,” Harper suggests. “It’s not comfy, but I feel like this has to be a story.”

“For once, I agree with you, Harper.” 

“For _once?”_

The look on Xinyi’s face says that if Dr. Niehaus wasn’t here, she’d be sticking her tongue out. Harper feels only a little bit guilty for relishing Xinyi’s frustration, and slides down to lean against the wall. Xinyi follows, and then, so does Dr. Niehaus.

“We met here, actually,” she says finally. “A few floors up, a wing or two over--you know radiology? It was there. She’d just been hired, poached from Columbia with promises of more money and research, and I was supposed to be doing my residency.” 

“Supposed to be?” Harper asks.

“Got a little sick then,” Dr. Niehaus explains, tapping her chest. “Autoimmune thing, brand new and unique to me. Instead of studying here, I ended up studied.” 

“Was Dr. Cormier on your team?” 

Dr. Niehaus turns her head just enough to give Xinyi a flat, disbelieving look. “Zhou-duck, you’re one of the best med interns we’ve seen, and you’re asking me if a cardiothoracic surgeon was on an autoimmune case? I worry for you.” 

Xinyi’s jaw works in a sort of bewildered frustration, and Dr. Niehaus huffs a laugh.

“It was complicated. She was a doctor, but not my doctor. I was still technically a doctor, but also a patient. It was the kind of thing that would’ve made Legal all twitchy, and if they were gonna fire one of us it wasn’t going to be the brilliant French surgeon they’d just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on. So, Delphine, the dramatist she’s always been, insisted we keep everything secret to protect my job and future. And I started acting like a jerk, and well, here we are.” 

“Why were you acting like a jerk?” 

“Because, in Delphine’s words, I am an en-fit terrible,” Dr. Niehaus says, all three of them wincing at her attempt at French. “And she does this thing with her face whenever she’s trying to be professional, but she’s really annoyed, and she’s great at hiding it, but if you look at the corner of her eyes--” 

Dr. Niehaus’ hand starts on one of it’s expressive gestures, her eyes bright, and Harper can see the exact moment she remembers where she is, what just happened. Her hand goes limp and she cradles it to her chest, a wounded bird.

“It’s kind of messed up, you know. I was dying when we met,” and it’s so matter-of-fact that Harper almost misses it, the tiny detail that Dr. Niehaus was supposed to be dead before they even met her. “It was her that figured it out--remembered some research paper she’d read that wasn’t even translated into English, called in every favor she’d ever had to get a doctor willing to try this experimental treatment that was completely her idea. She saved my life, and here I am. I have nothing to do for her.” 

Dr. Niehaus’ voice cracks right down the middle. Next to Harper, Xinyi makes a tiny panicked squeak, turning to look at Harper. 

Like _Harper_ has any idea what to do.

“Well,” she starts, stops, then starts again when Xinyi shoots her a terrified look. “I mean, that’s not really true, right? She would’ve bled out if you hadn’t done something, and--and that’s not like something they teach you, to just stick your hand in there and plug up a vein. So you saved her. You got her to this point where she could actually be saved. So that’s--well, that’s really not nothing, right?” 

Dr. Niehaus stares for a long moment, her eyes very suspiciously damp, and Harper has a good sixty seconds of sheer panic that she’s made everything worse and she’s about to be the girl who sent Dr. Niehaus into a nervous breakdown.

And then she laughs.

“It was the hepatic _artery,_ Rowe-duck, who on Earth is teaching you medicine?” 

“You, Dr. Niehaus,” Harper says before she can think about it, and all three of them are sagging in toward each other, holding each other up, laughing a little and frightened a lot, waiting for news about Dr. Cormier.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harper and Xinyi don’t go in--they’re still interns, they’re still run off their feet with the patients no one wants to deal with, cleaning up messes, and scut in all its forms. But they slip into the ICU before shifts, and after shifts, and sometimes during shifts. They hang out by the nurse’s desk, and bribe them with non-hospital coffee to not tell the attendings where they are.

All the rooms in the ICU are glass-walled, so it’s easier to know exactly what’s going on--there’s no privacy in intensive care. And Harper and Xinyi are there are there at just the right time to see the drugs begin to ease off, and Dr. Cormier start to stir, and then begin to panic--

And then to see Dr. Niehaus jerk forward out of a sound sleep in the chair next to the bed, falling out of her chair before jolting up and taking Dr. Cormier’s hand. She’s murmuring something too soft to hear, but they can see Dr. Cormier’s body relax the moment she registers Dr. Niehaus’ voice. Dr. Niehaus drastically violates hospital protocol to wedge herself into bed next to Dr. Cormier, carefully avoiding all the tubes and wires, and that last bit of tension drains out of Dr. Cormier completely as the two women press their foreheads together, hands entwined.

Harper and Xinyi leave then. Dr. Cormier will be all right, with Dr. Niehaus beside her. And Dr. Niehaus will be all right, now that Dr. Cormier will be.

When Harper and Xinyi leave, they’re holding hands, with no plans to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I know there are so many comments I have left to answer; I've been dealing with health issues (mental and physical) this summer, so some things have fallen to the wayside. Please know that I am reading and hoarding your comments like a neurotic dragon, even if I don't reply. I really, really love you all.
> 
> You can partially blame pickwicklingpapers for this--she published a cophine hospital au a bit ago, reminding me I had this unfinished fic laying around, and eventually I decided to try polishing it up. 
> 
> Y'all are so wonderful, lovelies. Take care of yourselves.
> 
> <3


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